Crossing opens under an immediate pull of gloom, a mystery so thick with suspense it will keep you at the edge of your seat. Told completely through the perspective of Xing (Kris), a teenage outcast and immigrant boy nobody notices. Kris feels with each day that passes by, he fades a little more into the background. When he does get noticed it’s by bullies who spew their hatred racism at him, naïve mean kids who truly don’t understand that racial slurs hurt and riddle a person with insecurities. Kris looks in the mirror and wishes to be white, with blue eyes and blond hair. Instead of seeing how beautiful he truly is, he see’s ugly and thinks if only he were white life would be better. Kris’s isolation grew deep roots of insecurities that drew me to him, but also deep anger, that pulled me away from him....a very clever mix of emotion connecting me to his character. Highly relatable but also deeply complex to the point of troubling is how I would describe him.

Once kids start disappearing from Kris’s school, fear surrounds the town like a thick cloud. But the fear doesn’t really spread to Kris, for the first time because of the missing kids he is recognized. A music teacher is thrilled by the discovery that Kris can sing and pushes him to take part in the musical lead at school. Without the fear of his bully, the competition of the lead vocalist, it’s Xing’s time to shine. All of this greatness for Kris leads straight to prime suspect for the outsider looking in and it’s easy to see why he would get labeled as the guilty party.

Fukuda’s writing is so detailed and beautiful that he is able to hit the reader with true emotion, when Kris yearns for his homeland and describes a time in China so exquisite, a time when he felt free, when he lingers on the smells and sounds of the street and the laughter of his friends, the longing is so intense I wanted to be there as well. I wanted to believe the premise of the novel that Kris was innocent, taking the fall because he was the outcast no one paid attention to. But so much circumstantial evidence piled on top of him that I was second guessing his innocence by the end of the story. I believe that was the goal of the author, to show you the longings of this character, to see his love for Naomi, to see his grief over his father, to feel his yearnings for China and his yearning to find a place in America. Also to see his anger at injustice, to feel his shame towards his parents and see how that hate grew slowly and churned inside him. We are left truly conflicted!!

Crossing was an amazing debut!!